Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Review: Chasing the Trickster by April Grey

This is a story with a twist that follows 3 people. There
is Linda, wife, mother, photography graduate setting out to make her life work.
She doesn’t have a perfect marriage and even her photographs have odd, phantom
images, but she is making it work, alongside Pascal a university professor who
asks her to work with him to write his book as they bother become enamoured
with each other.

Then there’s Nina, photographer though plagued with
phantom images in her work. She’s supported by good friends and neighbours, but
her life falls into chaos when her ex-lover returns out of the blue with
hurried instructions that they have to flee to New Mexico – after goons try to
kidnap her and nearly kill her friend.

And Pascal, devout Catholic, still reeling from his divorce and fighting his
deep affection and growing love for Linda and then Nina. And he’s carrying a
passenger, the pagan god Cernunnos, god of lust and fertility who is constantly
pushing him away from his rigid morality.

Then there’s the Trickster. A powerful god he has taken
an interest in the characters – and definitely has his own agenda.

This book was a real rollercoaster for me. When it
started, I loved it. I loved the concepts, I loved the switching to the three
main characters/time periods and was eager to see how they fitted together. I
wanted to see the conflict between the Trickster and Cernunnos and what it
meant for Pascal that he was carrying such a supernatural passenger. And the
characters themselves were complex and flawed with major issues in their lives
that seemed like they were going to be addressed – like Linda and her deeply flawed
relationship, Pascal and his wrongheaded policing of his wife’s sexuality. Nina
being torn between her mysterious lover and her deep abiding loyalty to her
friends.

And the story started well – we had a brief introduction and then Nina’s life
was suddenly thrown into chaos. Goons were chasing her, her lover had a god in
his mind, her best friend was in hospital with a bullet in his chest and she
was hurrying to Santa Fe to try and find some answers to the chaos that had
suddenly over taken her life.

An excellent start.

Then it kind of petered out. The supernatural took a huge
step back, occasionally appearing as a voice in Pascal’s head but otherwise it
became a story of the mundane. Pascal and Nina taking a road trip, with their
growing sexual tension and conflict with Pascal’s rigid morality. And memories
of Pascal and Linda working together on his book, spending time together, growing
every closer and always with that underlying tension of his attraction and
affection meeting his morality and

It was decent, but it was a mundane tale, the magic and the mystery seemed to
have become lost, even the reason for the road trip seemed to fallen by the
wayside. And I had no idea how Linda was supposed to fit into the narrative or
why introducing Linda and Nina was supposed to solve any of the problems Nina
was facing. There was a lot of foreshadowing laid out and a lot of character
development. We were introduced to many of the characters that added so much
texture and depth to Pascal’s life and Linda became a fully formed person. But
I was still lost and kind of wondering what I was reading and why.

Then, at about 60% things began to fall into place again.
A lot of major action picked up, some major themes were developed – including the
ongoing powerful theme of environmental and the major consequences of that –
especially in relation to healthy children being born. All of the little
foreshadowing elements of Pascal and Cernunnos’s life came together to make the
Trickster’s grievance very real and understandable. Things happened, there were
grand revelations, all of the foreshadowing was suddenly wonderfully clear –
and then we get the grand revelation of Linda and Nina. I cannot spoil it
without completely ruining the book – but it brings a whole new level of themes
and concepts to the book and turns what happened before completely on its head.

The last quarter of the book went extremely quickly, with
the cards laid on the table it was back to being an excellent, fascinating read
with very complex characters with a lot of major issues and concepts to explore
and an exciting, intriguing story that pulled me back in and the whole book up
to its previous heights. The full extent of the Trickster’s game was revealed
and the major choices facing the characters now became ever clearer as well as
the smaller game Cernunnos had been playing in his own circle.

I think there were a lot of issues that were touched on
in this book and, in varying ways, challenged and resolved. Pascal’s sexism in
demanding his wife not use birth control then being upset that she lied to him
was fiercely challenged by Linda and Nina. Linda’s shaky relationship with her
husband frequently had his bad behaviour and even bullying referred to as what
it was. The issues of consent with using Pascal’s body for sex between Nina and
Cernunnos was another one touched on – as was the concept of consent and
Cernunnos’s powers of lust and attraction.

But I do think all of these issues were more touched upon
than adequately addressed. They were addressed, but not quite the an extent
that would have made me gleeful.

Inclusionwise, the women were extremely strong and
determined to live their own lives as free from interference as they can
manage. Nina keeps to her guns even as her world collapses and, even when faced
with a choice to change everything, is stubbornly driven to live the life she
has built no matter what else is offered to her.

Other than that there’s only one possible minority – one of
Nina’s neighbours, an extremely tiny bit part, is either trans or a
transvestite (the story isn’t clear) but it’s not the best portrayal – with them
being nearly entirely sex focused in the brief period we see her.

This book is a hard book to describe without revealing
the big twist on which the book rests – and it’s a twist that is epic,
unexpected and really turns the whole book round. It is an excellent book with
a premise and direction that is original, unexpected and an awesome read. I can’t
say more without breaking the unexpected that makes it so strong – but the
twist and last third of the book makes up for the middle that is a little
doughy and lost.

One
Man, Two Women, Two Gods...who will survive the Trickster's snare?

Ghostly
images materialize in Nina Weaver's photos. Goons try to kidnap her. When her
photographs are stolen and her best friend is shot, she realizes that she has
no one to turn to but her ex-lover, Pascal ""Goofy""
Guzman. Together they go on a desperate road trip in search of answers. The
truth is darker and more terrifying than Nina could ever have imagined. After
their love re-ignites, they fall into the Trickster God's trap.

Excerpt:

She
stared at the photo on the gallery wall and silently swore. All semester
ghostly images had marred her work. And now not only a strange inclusion ruined
her photo, but the pin light needed to be repositioned as well. She found a
ladder in the hallway supply closet. Balancing precariously on the top step,
she noticed that the imperfection had changed into the image of a vehicle, and
it was on fire. She could see the superheated air wavering up off of the
flames. The crackling and sudden heat of a blaze forced her to lift a hand to
guard her face. It was going to explode. She was quite sure of it. And then she
was falling backwards, falling down…

About the Author:

April
Grey's urban fantasy novel, Chasing The Trickster, is published by Eternal
Press. Her short stories have been published in such print anthologies as
Demonmind's Halloween 2010, The Best of Everyday Fiction 2, Northern Haunts,
Ephemera and Terrible Beauty, Fearful Symmetry. Many of these stories can be
found in her collection, The Fairy Cake Bake Shoppe available through Amazon
and Smashwords.

She
and her family live in Hell's Kitchen, NYC in a building next to a bedeviled
garden. Gremlins, sprites or pixies, something mischievous, lurks therein.
Someday she'll find out.